Social Scientist

Coconut and Honey: Sanskrit and Telugu in Medieval AndhraAuthor(s): Velcheru Narayana RaoReviewed work(s):Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 23, No. 10/12 (Oct. - Dec., 1995), pp. 24-40Published by: Social ScientistStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3517881 .Accessed: 07/03/2012 03:00

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VELCHERU NARAYANA RAO*

Coconut and Honey: Sanskrit and Telugu in Medieval Andhra1

It was January 15, 1517. Krsnadevaraya, the Vijayanagara king, who was on his way to invade the Kalinga country, stopped at the temple of god Andhramahavisnu in grikakulam on the bank of the Krishna river. That night the god appeared in his dream.2 As reported by Krsnadevaraya himself in his Amuktamalyada, the god said:

You told the Story of Madalasa, exciting connoisseurs of poetry with skillful similes and metaphors and the trope of true description. You sang of Satyabhama, a poem resonant with rich feeling. You made a collection of superb stories culled from all ancient books. You composed the Gem of Wisdom, an eloquent work that dispels residues of darkness in those who hear it. You astounded us with honeyed poemsin the language of the gods, The Pleasures of Poetry and other essays. Is Telugu beyond you? Make a book in Telugu now, for my delight.

Why Telugu? You might ask. This is the Telugu land. I am the lord of Telugu. There is nothing sweeter.

You speak many languages with kings who come to serve you. Don't you know? Among all the languages of the land, Telugu is best. (Amuktamalyada 1-13, 15)

The final statement-deiabhaal' andu telugu lessa, "among all the languages of the land, Telugu is best"-has acquired new meaning in the context of post-

Department of South Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Social Scientist, Vol. 23 Nos. 10-12, October-December 1995

SANSKRIT AND TELUGU IN MEDIEVAL ANDHRA

nineteenth-century linguistic nationalism, as a slogan of superiority for Telugu people. It even appears on a postal stamp released by the goverment as a recognition of Telugu pride.

However, there is no evidence of language serving as symbol of "national" identity before the nineteenth century. There were Telugu-speaking people, Telugu land, and even love of one's own language-but no Telugu people whose identity was formed by the "mother-tongue". Indeed, there is no such a word as "mother- tongue" in medieval Telugu.3 The modem matrbhasa is a loan translation from English. Nor there was any opposition between one regional language and the other; the distinction drawn was always between devabhasa (the language of gods, San- skrit), and degabhdsas (the languages of people). It is necessary to steer clear of the languagenationalism, which has fueled a majorpolitical movement in contemporary Andhra and led to a re-drawing of the map of India along linguistic lines in the post- independence period. Care in distancing premoder language sense from the twentieth-century nationalist formations is especially necessary because modem Telugu intellectuals have read into their literary history a sustaining love of language as a means of establishing national identity and have at the same time erased all existing relationships with neighboring languages.

Going back to the words of the god to Krsnadevaraya makes this point clear. The king had already achieved the status of a poet in Sanskrit by virtue of his having authored several books in that language. Being a master of the language of gods, controlling a language ofhumans should be easy forhim. But then, while there exist a number of human languages, why choose Telugu?

It should be remembered that Krsnadevaraya was not bor in the Telugu area. He was a Tuluva, from an area of southwestern Kamataka. As the god himself says, he is a Kannada raya-a Kamataka king, though a Telugu speaker all the same. Apparently he spoke more than one language, and found that speaking Telugu made it easier for him to rule what was largely a Telugu area.

The politics of the empire were crucial here to the choice of language. Sanskrit is the language of pride and power. It is already enshrined in the hearts of the scholarly world as a language of great glory. All the great books-vedas, Sastras, itihasas and kivyas-are in that language. What is more, it is the only language that can confer on Krsnadevaraya the status of a ksatriya in the four-varna ideology of the Brahminic/Hindu world. In his own locality, Krsnadevaraya was only a peasant and, if legends are to be believed, a low-caste peasant at that. But he was a peasant- warrior with aspirations to kingship. Outside his language area, his status did not translate into anything intelligible or respectable. One would not know where to place a Tulu Nayaka in the regional hierarchy of an area outside Kamataka. On the other hand, the pan-Indian categories of status are well-established in the four classes: Brahmana, Ksatriya, Vaisya and Sudra. Brahmins,4ve obsessively carried the learning of Sanskrit books over generations, created a wider viability to Sanskrit and the Brahminic ideology. It would thus be possible for Krsnadevaraya to adopt Ksatriya status, which in turn can be conferred upon him by the Brahmins. This dialectic of mutual construction-Brahmins conferring the status of Ksatriyahood

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on kings and the Ksatriyas making Brahmins powerful by their patronage-is predominantly the story of Brahmin ideology in premodem India.5

We should pause briefly to observe the nature of this Brahmin class, without understanding which we cannot get an idea of the power of ideology in pre-modem India. Here is a class of people, unlike any other class, who are unusually mobile, in a sense uninterested in acquiring roots in any locality, and therefore no threat to any local peasant or landowner. What they carried with them is an obsessive dedication to the vedic chants-which they preserved in oral tradition with phenomenal patience- to the Sastra texts, especially grammar, to the great epics of Mahabharata and the Ramayana, and to a host of literary texts of poets like Kalidasa. The power of Sanskrit is partly derived from the wide distribution of Brahmins all over the Indian subcontinent and the cultural influence they wielded in working with the local religious and political groups-in some sense "convert- ing" them and their deities to what we now call, for lack of a more suitable word, Hinduism. While preserving their Sanskrit intact, the Brahmins were also profi- cient in learning the local languages, sometime more than one, and composing poetry in them. Images of a cultural militia, or of an ideological army, would not be too far-fetched to apply to the Brahmins of premoder India, when one sees the scale of their operation and the constancy of their ideological message. Krsnadev araya thus showed profound pragmatism in demonstrating his expertise in Sanskrit and his patronage of Brahmins both as political allies and religious leaders. There was considerable evidence of history before him to show the wisdom of this move. Nearly every family who have aspired to royal status on a scale larger than their limited native locality-Colas, Calukyas, and Kakatlyas-sought the support of Sanskrit-chanting Brahmins to elevate themselves to the status of K$atriyas. Elite and wealthy establishments such as the Srivaisnava maths (monasteries) patronized and expounded in Sanskrit. Moreover, Brahmins and their Sanskrit texts were predominant in imaging a pan-Indian empire, an empire "encircled by four oceans," which includes a wide geographical/mythological area-an area that could be as large as South Asia.

In a curious way, the distance and the aura that S anskrit had acquired were related to its unintelligibility. The Vedas and all the prescriptive texts of Sanskrit, including its venerated grammar, derived their power precisely from their being distanced from the ordinary person. However, their ideological impact would not be felt if they were not made somehow accessible. In fact a number of Sanskrit texts, like the Vedas, were considered too pure to be made accessible to the uninitiated, that is, the non-Brahmins. It was in this context that the marga poet-the elevated Sanskritized author-came in. He wrote and commented, interpreted retellings of such texts that could be brought closer to the people-without defiling their purity. Massive

retellings of purana texts, among which the Mahabharata was the first, were un- dertaken by a host of Brahmin poets between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, an activity that has gone on virtually unabated right into the twentieth century. The

puranas were not just translated, they were performed in temples and other religious establishments for public hearing, thus bringing the retold Telugu texts closer to the

SANSKRIT AND TELUGU IN MEDIEVAL ANDHRA

audience for whom they were intended. Thus, the distance between the unintelli- gible Sanskrit texts and the audience was systematically bridged-without compro- mising the pure status of Sanskrit texts. It was an ideal situation where you could have your cake and eat it too. The Sanskrit texts retained their high status and at the same time were made available to the audience through their retellings.6

The retellings are not just "translations," as is sometimes supposed. To take the Telugu example, what Nannayya or Tikkanna did in retelling the Mahabharata in Telugu was to create a domestic Mahabharata, transformed to a regional story of medieval south India, that could happen in any south Indian kingdom or, for that matter, any large joint family. These retellings reinterpreted the Sanskrit texts and at the same time created an elevated and regional discourse and values. This explains why KrsnadEvaraya chose to represent himself a scholar of Sanskrit and also a creator of an elevated Telugu text. Something more can be leart from Kr$nadevaraya's own statements regarding his choice of Telugu. The following passage in Amuktamalyada reflects a complex ambivalence that marked his relationship with the landed lords of his kingdom, whose language was Telugu. Here Krsnadevaraya recommends a course of action for a successful king. He clearly trusts the Brahmins but is a little wary of non-Brahmin (Telugu-speaking) lords:

The king should never go to battle himself. He should elevate someone else to the level of a lord, and send him. It has to be someone strong, equipped with money, land, elephants, and horses. Give him fortified lands. But if such a person is a non-Brahmin, he will soon become a rival. Still, you need him too.7

Krsnadevaraya's choice of Telugu was a political choice. He wanted to please the local speakers of Telugu by calling their language "sweet." He needed their support, as well as the support of Sanskrit. His praise for Telugu is carefully nuanced: the comparison is only between.Telugu and other regional languages. As for Sanskrit, it is on a different plane. As the language of gods, it is not in opposition with Telugu or with any other language of the land.

THE SAIVA PROTEST

We have to go back a few centuries to detect anything like a hint of conflict between Telugu and Sanskrit-- indeed, not just centuries, we also have to cross the boundaries of religion, into the militant Saiva religion of Basave.vara of twelfth- century Kamataka, who advocated a creed without caste barriers and gender discriminations. His thirteenth-century follower Palkuriki Somanatha is the first to find Sanskrit alienating. He reasons that Sanskrit and books composed in Sanskritic meters are not accessible to ordinary people. He says in his Basavapurana:

Telugu is simple, beautiful to hear. It reaches all. unlike these big words of verse and prose.

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I will therefore sing in dvipada couplets. A good poet makes great meaning with small words.8

By "big words of verse and prose," SOmanatha means the Mahabh9rata composed in a genre called campi, a genre of verse interspersed with rhythmic prose, by Nannayya (eleventh century), who latercame to berevered as the firstpoet of the Telugu literary canon. The genre and style created by Nannayya became the standard for marga poets. Nannayya was a Brahmin and a respected Sanskrit scholar of his time in the court of King Rajarajanarendra who ruled the central Andhra deltaic region. In all probability he was not local to Rajamahendravaramu (modem day Rajahmundry on the east coast of Andhra), but migrated with his Tamil-speaking king of the Eastern Calukya dynasty as his family priest. The king himself was not very strong and stable in his empire, and his rule was rather short- lived. This was the underlying cultural context for Somanatha's thirteenth-century rebellion against Sanskrit forms of literature and Brahmin superiority.

SOmanatha composed in meters close to Telugu women's songs, dvipada "couplets." SOmanatha'smovementhad all the potential of blossoming into conflict not just on linguistic lines, but also on caste and religious lines. Considering the fact that Somanatha was leading a militant anti-Brahminic Saiva movement, Sanskrit now could become synonymous with Brahmin superiority and Brahmin religion. The potential battle lines are clear:

Bhavis (non-gaivas) vs. Saivas

Marga (Sanskritic) vs. Desi (Indigenous) Brahmin vs. low-caste

However, matters were not that simple. For one thing, SOmanatha himself did not maintain a consistently anti-Sanskrit stance. His position against Sanskritic meters and the campu genre is based on a rationale of easy accessibility. It was in the interest of reaching common readers, especially the "left-hand" groups of artisans and petty traders, that he chose the indigenous dvipada couplet meter. Further, there is an unmistakable sense of inferiority he feels in using Telugu:

telugu matalananga valadu. vedamula koladiyaka jjuduu....

Don't just say these words are only Telugu; look at them as Veda.

The communities of people for whom Somanatha intended his poetry remained on the periphery of the political system in Andhra (although in Kamataka, to the west, they briefly captured the political center at Kalyan). Moreover, the militant gaiva message of the Basavapurana presented no program for the acquisition of political power. It offered no role for a king, and no ideology of kingship. In this sense, it makes a striking contrast to the role of Sanskrit and Sanskrit poetry in the construction of political roles for the "right-hand," land-based communities.

SANSKRIT AND TELUGU IN MEDIEVAL ANDHRA

MARGA AND DESI

By the time SOmanatha was writing, Telugu as a language had hardly begun its literary career. To have any status as a literary language, it needed the support of Sanskrit. If Sanskrit is the marga, the "path," Telugu could only hope to be deSi, "local" or "regional," if it did its job right. Unlike Tamil, which had a secure and respectable past and sat by the side of Sanskrit as an equal, Telugu had to claim maturity by incorporating from the language of the gods and, by extension, of Brahmins, the gods on earth.

We have on the authority of Nannecoda (a twelfth-century poet) that Telugu poetry began as deii under the patronage of the Calukyas, who ruled central Andhra during the tenth and eleventh centuries.9 But in contrast with Palkuriki SOmanatha, who developed a more distinctly indigenous style, the courtly poetry of Nannayya became marga itself. From then on, marga and deSi come to mark a distinction in Telugu styles, one more Sanskritic and the other more indigenous. We can see, in centuries that follow, marga poetry receiving more and more patronage from kings and patrons assuming kingly status-which include even deities of temples-while deSi poetry was left more or less as its poor cousin. Though cultivated by poets of high family status like Gona Buddhareddi, who composed Ranganatha Ramayana in dvipada, and Katta Varadaraju, who composed anotherRamayana in dvipada (more about this later), this meter has an unmistakably low status in the eyes of scholars. An oft-quoted segment of a poem from a forgotten source even condemns dvipada by grouping it with an old whore, a backyard sewer, and a patron who does not pay.10

According to legends recorded some three hundred years after Somanatha, dvipada seems to have faced severe opposition even during the time of the militant author of Basavapurana:

Some Saiva devotees were reading the Basavapurana in the Siva temple at Orugallu [Warangal]. The Kakatiya King Prataparudra, who happened to go to the temple at that time, inquired what was going on there. Brahmins who were with the king said that some Saiva devotees were listening to a reading of Basavapurana. When the king wanted to know more about it, an evil Brahmin told him that it was a recent work composed by the sinner Palkuriki Somanatha, who had made it in extended dvipada couplets with poor caesura (madhyavallupetipenace dvipada); it was substandard and did not deserve the king's respect. The king left without paying any more attention to the text. 1

With Tikkanna, another thirteenth-century Brahmin poet who retold large parts of the Mahabharata, the militant Saiva non-Brahmin protest against Sanskrit had been effectively diffused. Tikkanna called himself ubhaya-kavi-mitra, a friend of both schools of poets-the Saiva-Telugu and the Brahminic-Sanskrit. He used a

predominantly Telugu style in a text composed in Sanskritic meters. His influence on later generations of poets was enormous. He was not just a poet but also a politician: as the minister of Manumasiddhi, he negotiated and gained the military

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support of the mighty Kakatiya king in behalf of his (Tikkanna's) patron. Legends also tell us that Tikanna was effective in having the Kakatiya king annihilate the Jaina temples.12

Meanwhile, as we have seen, Somanatha's dvipada meter itself had lost some of its non-Brahminic Saiva identity when it was borrowed by authors like Buddhareddi (fourteenth century) for telling the Ramayana story, hardly a non-Brahminic nar- rative. The deSi style of literature continued to thrive, but as a quiet complement to the dominant marga style, which flourished in the courts of royal patrons and even rich temples. So much so that when Annamayya (1408-1503) sang for the god on Tirupati hill in southern Andhra, he had no difficulty in using deSi meters for his Telugu songs while composing songs in Sanskrit in the same vein.

SEPARATION OF STYLES

Thus deSi and marga became complements to each other rather than contestants, as Somanatha might have intended them to be. But the awareness that Sanskrit and Telugu represent two distinctly different styles even within the marga category persisted. This is demonstrated with great expressive power in a long metapoetic poem attributed to Peddanna, the court poet of Krsnadevaraya, which highlights the distinct separation of Telugu and Sanskrit styles. According to the legend, Kr$nadevaraya offered a golden anklet, gandapenderamu, to any poet who could excel in composing verses in Sanskrit and Telugu with equal ease. Peddanna accepted the challenge and came up with this extempore verse in utpala-malika. The king, stunned by the extraordinary performance, personally honored the poet by himself putting the golden anklet on the poet's feet. Here is the poem:

pita merungulun basaru pupabedangulu jupuna.ti'va kaitalu jaggu niggu nena gavale gammuna gammananvalen ratiriyun baval marapurani hoyal celi yarajampu nid- dataritipuloyanaga darasilanvale lo dalancinan batiga baikonanvalenu baidali kuttukaloni pallati kutalananvalen sogasu korkulu ravale nalakifcinan jetikolandi kaugitanu jercina kanniya cinni ponni mel mutala cannudoyivale muccata gavale batti cucinan datodan'unna minnula mitarapu muddula gumma kamman'au vatera dondapanduvale vacavigavale banta nidinan gatala dammiculidora kaivasapun javarali sibbepun meteli yabburampu jigi nibbarap' ubbagu gabbigubba pon- butala nunna kayasari podimi kinnera melubanti san- gatapu sannatanti bayakarapu kanna.da gaula pantuka satata tana tanala pasan divuta.dedu gota m.tu bal mrotalununbalen haruvu mollamu gavale naccatengu t1 rttiga samskrtamb'upacariice.du pattuna bharativadhi- .itapaniyagarbhanikatlbhavadananaparvasahitl- bhautikanatakaprakarabharatabharatasammata

SANSKRIT AND TELUGU IN MEDIEVAL ANDHRA

prabhadltanagatmajagiriSasekharasitmayukharekhikapatasudha- praparabahubhangaghumamghumaghhumghumarbhat- jatakata.layugmalayasangatic uncuvipanicikamrdan- gatatatehitattahitahadhitadhimdhanudhanudhimdhimi vratanayanukulapadavarakuhaudvahaharikinkint nutanaghalghalacarananupurajhalajhaflmarandasan- ghataviyaddhunmcakacakadvikacotpalasarasangraha- yatakumaragandhavahaharisugandhavilasayuktamai cetamu jallajeyavale jillana jallavalen manohara dyotakagostaniphalamadhudravagoghrutapayasaprasa- datirasaprasJraruciraprasarambuga sare sarekun.

Is poetry a surface sheen, the green delusion of unfolded buds? It must be real inside and out, exploding fragrance, an aching touch your body can't forget by day or night, like of your woman, whenever you think about it. It should come over you, it should murmur deep in the throat, as your lover in her dove-like moaning, and as you listen, yearning comes in all its beauty. If you take hold of it, your fingers tingle as if you were tracing the still-hidden breasts of a young girl, wholly embraced. If you sink your teeth into it, it should be succulent as the full lips of a ripe woman from another world, sitting on your knees. It should ring as when godly Sound strokes with her fingernails the strings of her vina, with its golden bulbs resting on her proud, white, pointed breasts, so that the raga-notes resound. That is the pure Telugu mode.

If you use Sanskrit, then a rushing, gushing overflow of moonlight waves, luminous and cool, from Siva's crest, the mountain-bor goddess beside him, enveloping actors and their works, the dramas spoken by Speech herself in the presence of the Golden Seed, pounding out the powerful rhythms, the beat of being, through drums and strings and chiming bells and thousands of ringing anklets dancing, drawing out the words, the fragrant and subtle winds wafting essence of unfolding lotus from the Ganges streaming in the sky should

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comfort your mind. You should shiver in pleasure again and again, each time you hear it, as rivulets of honeyed juices and butter and sweet milk flow together and mix their goodness more and more and more.

What we offer here in translation does not reflect the exuberant texture of the poem, which dramatically demonstrates the variation in Telugu and Sanskrit styles, the first with soft, lyrical and intimately murmuring syllables and the second with its high-sounding Sanskrit phrases, infused with the energy of repeated aspirates in an increasingly dense compound. This second style retains the attention and marvel of the listeners even though they are almost certainly unable to follow the precise meaning of this intricately woven and immensely long Sanskrit compound, the like of which one rarely sees even in Sanskrit texts.

Both the marked separation and the close proxirnky of Sanskrit andTelugu are well-established features in all Telugu literary texts of the marga class, right from Tikkanna onwards. Each poet paid respects to the poets before him (purva-kavi- stuti) in the preface to his work. As a matter of convention, respect was always offered to the Sanskrit poets first-Vyasa, Kalidasa, Bhavabhuti, Bana and so on- followed by the great poets of Telugu: Nannayya, Tikkanna, Errapragada and others. The choice of poets is fairly constant through a period of about eight hundred years, indicating a firmly established canon, always including an equally well- established respect for Sanskrit.

Along with this awareness of separation between Sanskrit and Telugu, there was also a certain sensitivity to the problem of going too far one way or the other. Srinatha, the great fifteenth-century poet, is fully aware of the problem of being too Sanskritic in his style. Legend has it that his translation of grihar$a's Naisadhiya- carita was severely criticized for being too Sanskrit. According to a popular joke, Sanskrit scholars approached Srinatha and said: "Take your Telugu case suffixes (du, mu, vu and lu) and give us our Sanskrit text back." Srinatha used long Sanskrit compounds as they appear in the original Sanskrit text verbatim, with only a Telugu suffix added to them. He seems to have anticipated such a criticism:

Sriharsa's learned poem is juicy and meaty as a ripe coconut. You have to break it open to taste it. Lazy readers can't appreciate it. That's how it is. When a young woman strokes the cheek of a little boy with her fingernail, does his heart start pounding with love?13

Again, in his later work, BhImeSvara-puranamu, Srimtha states:

SANSKRIT AND TELUGU IN MEDIEVAL ANDHRA

Seeing its erudition, some say it's tough as Sanskrit. Hearing the idiom, others say it's nothing but simple Telugu. Let them say whatever they want. I couldn't care less. My poetry is the true language of this land.

The problem of style does not get resolved. Poet after poet returns to this problem and attempts to resolve it, each in his/her own way. Potanna, of about the same time as Srinatha, tries to be gentle and friendly to both the camps, Sanskrit and Telugu:

Some like Telugu, others like Sanskrit and yet others like both languages. I will try to please all of them, with varying styles in different places.

And Koravi GOparaju (ca. 16th century) even complains:

If I write lucidly in Telugu, they say the poem is not tight, it is too soft, lacks strength. If I use Sanskrit with some force, they complain it is thorny as darbha grass

and don't listen to it.

So, I will make a judicious mix of Telugu and Sanskrit words.14

Molla, a poetess who produced a version of the Ramayana, tells us in her intro- duction:

When a drop of honey touches the tongue, your whole mouth is filled with sweetness. The whole sense of a poem should fill you all at once. A poem composed with arcane words is a dialogue of the deaf and the dumb.

Gu.dha-Sabdamulanu gurcina kavyamu, "a poem composed with arcane words," must indicate that a high proportion of obscure Sanskrit words are woven into the Telugu text, as is frequent in Telugu court-poetry.

Nearly every major Telugu poet, especially those who aspired to recognition in royal courts, has declared his competence in Sanskrit Sistras. Poets like Srinatha professed profound knowledge in all branches of learning as well as their skill in making poetry in both Sanskrit and Telugu. By convention, scholarship meant scholarship in Sanskrit texts, and poetic skills meant competence in Telugu poetry. This distinction between creativity and scholarship often implied that if a poet were not also a scholar, he or she was apoorpoet. Such apoet rarely entered a king's court where Sanskrit scholarship reigned supreme. Proud challenges were issued by pandits to other pandit-poets, and there are reports of public disputations and great

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royal honors. The famous disputation between the Telugu poet Srinatha and the Orissa poet Dindima in the court of the Vijayanagar king Praudhadevaraya is one such instance celebrated in Telugu literary texts. Dindima had a bronze drum made as a demonstration of his undisputed superiority among scholars. Srinatha defeated Dindima and had his bronze drum broken into pieces. However, excessive superiority of Sanskrit scholarship was met with opposition, as is reflected in the following popular legend:

Once, a Sanskrit scholar came to the court of Krsnadevaraya and saw all the poetry in Telugu being read there. Impatient with the position Telugu acquired in the court, the Sanskrit pandit blurted out:

dndhrabhascmayam kavyam ayomayavibhusanam A poem in Telugu is like an ornament made of iron-

Tenali Ramalinga, the scholar-poet and court jester, immediately retorted:

samskrtaranyasancdrividvanmattebhaSrnkhalam a perfect chain to restrain pandits prowling like wild elephants through the Sanskrit jungle trails.

Another, again parodic, formulation of this tension comes from Vallabharaya's Kr.dabhiramamu (early fifteenth century). Vallabharaya refers to Sanskrit's alleged status as the mother of all languages, and to the choice of Telugu for practical purposes:.

janani samskrtambu sakalabhasalakunu desabhasal' andu denugu lessa jagati dalli kae saubhagya-sampada meccut' adubidda melu gade

They say "Sanskrit is the mother of all languages, but among the languages of the land Telugu is best." Of course. Between the aged mother and the ravishing young daughter, I'll take the daughter any day!"15

The satirist is apparently quoting popular statements, including one we have already seen in Krsnadevaraya's sixteenth-century text (desa-bhsaal'andu denugu lessa). The identification of Sanskrit as the mother of tongues is also found in Ketana's Andhra-bhasa-bhusanamu (thirteenth century).16 In any case, the satire drives home the point that Telugu is to be preferred-again for entirely mundane reasons!

The pcsition of other regional languages in the medieval period is also worth investigating. We know that poets knew more than one regional language and often wee influenced by poets and texts from various languages of the region. Srinatha makes a proud declaration of his competence in Sanskrit, Prakrit, SauraSeni, and other languages. By other languages, he means the rest of the asta-bhaiiss, eight

SANSKRIT AND TELUGU IN MEDIEVAL ANDHRA

languages: Magadhi, Paisaci, Culika, Apabhramsa, and Telugu. Poets prided themselves as being capable of composing in these eight languages: asta-bhasa- kaviSvara.17 We know from Srinatha's descriptions that the ministers of his time were veritable polyglots. They knew a number of languages including Arabic, Persian and Turkish, Kannada, Gujarati and Malayalam.18 An interesting tidbit that might be noted here is that people who ridiculed other languages were supposed to be punished by the king with a fine of one hundred panas, and that arava is cited as a derogatory word for Tamil!19

THE LATE-MEDIEVAL CRYSTALLIZATION

There seems to be a significant shift in the status of Telugu and Sanskrit in works composed during the late-medieval period (especially the seventeenth century). During this time, when Telugu-speaking Nayakas ruled a predominantly Tamil- speaking area of South India, Telugu acquired a status almost similar to that of Sanskrit in the preceding centuries. Now Telugu assumes a position in the court as an intellectual language. Puranas and Sistras, grammars andbooks on poetics were written in Telugu. Sanskrit was still used, but it was not necessarily the only means of elevating one's status. Telugu was good enough for that purpose. The contrast between Sanskrit and Telugu styles came to occupy less of the poets' attention, as did the contrast between marga and deSi. In a way, the distinction between these styles became less clear, and the court itself began patronizing dsi or de~i-like texts. The Nayaka kings themselves wrote yaksaganas, a genre of musical play derived from the dei tradition. More important still, non-brahman poets became prm,ri- nent. The court was full of them. While there was no great effort to reduce t, importance of Sanskrit or to oppose it, and no visible attempt to oppose the Brahmins, there was an unmistakable importance given to Telugu poets -non- Brahmins at that.

This important change expresses the self-confidence acquired by the non- Brahmin king and a new class of merchant-warriors who initiated far-reaching changes in the political and social order. We argued in our Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nayaka-Period Tamilnadu (Narayana Rao et al. 1992) that the new order reflects a new set of values in poetry, historiography, and political and cultural institutions. One important change that this new order represented touches on is the status of the king in relation to the Brahmin. The king no longer needed the Brahmin to legitimize his status. The king was god himself, and thus the Brahmin became the god-king's servant rather than his superior. This shift, only briefly stated here, is also reflected in the relative status of Sanskrit and Telugu. In the new royal court, Telugu was the language of the king. However, despite the fact that the king was equated with God, Telugu had not been elevated to the level of the

language of gods. At roughly the same time, but further north, in the village of Kamepalli in the

interior of Guntur District, there emerged a very influential scholar-poet, Appakavi. His book, a grammarprincipally of metrics popularly known asAppakaviyamu, held

sway over the literary tradition for about three hundred years, right until the rise of

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modem movements in Telugu poetry in the early decades of the twentieth century. In the introduction to his book, Appakavi tells us a powerful tale-narrated to him by God himself in a dream-about the allegedly "original" grammar of Telugu, composed in Sanskrit (by the great Nannayya, the first poet himself) and then nearly lost and totally destroyed. This story, perhaps more than any other text, reveals the crystallizing structure of the late-medieval tradition at the stage which perhaps marks its intellectual acme.

The power of Sanskrit in medieval Andhra rested on the respect it had acquired as the language of gods, a position sustained because of the supreme awe in which its grammar had beenheld. Panini, the great grammarian ofS anskrit,his commentator Pataiijali, the author of Mahabhasya: and Katyayana, who contributed the varttika rules - all three were revered as divine beings. Grammar, in this culture, was not merely a set of rules that describe the language; it was the knowledge given by god to create a sanctified language-the very essence of ultimate reality.

Telugu had never had a grammar of that power-not until Appakavi "revealed" it. Appakavi tells us (through the mouth of the god in his dream) that Nannayya composed such a grammar in Sanskrit sutras, which were suppressed by his jealous rival Bhimakavi, who threw the only copy into the Godavari River. Fortunately, a student of Nannayya's (Saranrgadhara) had memorized the whole text. We know S arangadhara's storyfrom a Telugu kavyacomposedinseventeenth-centuryTanjavur by Cemakira Venkatakavi, as well as from other sources (Gaurana's Nava-natha- caritra, late fifteenth century). In these texts, Sarangadhara is the object of his stepmother's sexual advances, which he resists; she then slanders him to his father, the king Rajarajanarendra, who orders his hands and legs cut off. Sarangadhara survives the unjust punishment and eventually joins the Siddhas, spiritually powerful healers who live forever. Appakavi hints at this story (without mentioning the seduction episode); he identifies Saragadhara as a Siddha, himself magically healed by Matsyendranatha. As a long-lived Siddha, Sarangadhara can thus preserve Nannayya's grammar over the hundreds of years that divide Nannayya from Appakavi. As Appakavi tells the story, Saraigadhara transmits the grammar both to Balasarasvati, a learned Brahmin from Matanga Hill (at Hampi/ Vijariayanagara?) who will eventually compose a Telugu tika on it, and to another text purports to be a Telugu commentary on the sutras of Nannayya's lost and re- stored grammar (although in fact wehave only Appakavi's metrical analysis in full).

This fascinating and complicated story achieves two things: It produces a grammar of great antiquity, written by the very first poet of Telugu, one who has been regarded for centuries as the creator-deity (vag-anuSasana) of Telugu poetry. And it also gives Appakavi god-given authority to comment on Nannayya's rules. Now, Telugu has aPanini. The language is on its way to be as sanctified as Sanskrit. Incidentally, the foundational Telugu grammar is also brought into line with the standard view of all major texts-beginning with the Veda itself-as having been lost or fragmented and then at least partially restored.

It is also striking that, according to Appakavi, during the long centuries when

SANSKRIT AND TELUGU IN MEDIEVAL ANDHRA

Nannayya's grammar was lost, poets used only such words as were attested in Nannayya's surviving works:

Later a mighty poet, Kavi-raksasa, in Dak$avati made a rule: Telugu poets must never use a single word unless it is attested in the Bharata of Nannayya, the lawmaker of language, since no rules of grammar survived.

From that time on, the great poets of the past, Tikkana and the rest, composed their works following the words and ways of Nannayya, in his three volumes.

Such is the medieval tradition's ultimate view of itself, its prehistory, and its structures of authority. It is in this context that we can also observe the mature tradition's vision of the peculiar merits of Telugu. Appakavi cites the following Sanskrit sitra attributed to Nannayya:

svasthanavesabhasabhimatah santo rasapralubdhadhiyah loke bahumanyante vaikrtakavyani canyad apahaya (2)

"Leared scholars love the language and dress of their region, and have a weakness for aesthetic joy. Therefore they respect poetry in their language, in preference to other languages."

Now Appakavi adds, in his commentary (first reformulating the Sanskrit s&tra): Intelligent scholars love the language and dress of their own region, and have a weakness for aesthetic joy. They always take as their own what belongs to their region and have no liking for poetry of other places, because it is not immediately evocative. Poetry of each region is good for that region, but not appropriate for other areas, whereas poetry in the language of the gods (amaroktulu) is good for all lands. Sanskrit books give all four benefits20 for human beings, even if their meaning is not always clear. Although they refer to the stories of Vi$nu, the beautiful texts of another regional language21 cannot bring release if you don't experience their flavor or their meaning. Poetry in the language ofyour own region gives the same benefits as Sanskrit to its readers. Women and Sudras who know no Sanskrit will need to have texts retold to them in their own language. The language of the barbarians (mlecchabhdsa) is despised by the Veda, but still should not be rejected in disgust, because without it daily life will be affected (Appakaviyamu 1.60-67).

Here the linguistic map is fully worked out and arranged in accordance with its new hierarchies and the values of the late-medieval system. Sanskrit gives benefit no matter what-whether it is intelligible or not. Tamil poetry for Visnu would perhaps count as useful, if only it could be understood. Telugu-the obvious paradigm for a regional language-is equal to Sanskrit, autonomous, worthy of

complete respect. Poetry in the regional language has its own necessity-it communicates Sanskrit texts to women and non-Brahmins. Finally, even barbaric tongues such as Arabic and Persian have a utilitarian value and should not be left out.

Still, complaints against difficult Sanskrit continue right into the modem period.

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Let me conclude with a poem parodying Visvanatha Satyanarayana, who is known for his hard-to-follow Sanskritic style:

Torture us, please, impossible poet, with your exuberance of stunning words and delicious feeling slightly mixed with bitter dryness. We need jaws of stone to grind the elevated phrases you utter with ease as you tease us through your labyrinths, books cooked to the texture of rock.22

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arudra. Samagra Andra Sahityam, vol.2. Vijayavada: Prajasakti Book House. Rao,VelcheruNarayana. 1993. "Puranaas Brahminic Ideology." In Wendy Doniger, ed.PuranaPerennis:

Reciprocity and Transformation in Hindu andJaina Texts. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp. 85- 100.

and Hank Heifetz, trans. 1987. For the Lord of the Animals: Poemsfrom the Telugu: the Kalahastisvara Satakamu of Dhurjati. Berkeley: U. of Califoria Press.

,trans., assisted by Gene Roghair. 1990. Siva's Warriors: Basavapur.na of Palkuriki Somanatha. Princeton: Princeton U. Press.

, David Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. 1992. Symbols of Substance: Court and State. in Nayaka-Period Tamil Nadu. Delhi: Oxford U. Press.

Sanna, Gadiyaram Ramakrishna, ed. 1982. Simhasanadvatrimiika (of Koravi Goparaju). Hyderabad: Andhrapradesh Sahitya Akademi.

Venkataraya gastri, Vedam, ed. 1964. Amuktamalyada [of Kr$nadevaraya]. Madras: Vedamu

Venkataraya Sastri Brothers. (First edition, 1924)

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. I am deeply indebted to David Shulman, whose insights and scholarship have greatly enriched this paper. All translations are done in collaboration with him.

2. The date is suggested by Caganti Seshayya. See his note in his grandfatherVedam Venkataraya Sastri's edition of Amuktamalyada (1964:21).

3. An undated medieval Tamil verse ascribed to the poetess Auvaiyar does use the Tamil term

taymoli, "mother tongue":

aimporulum narporulum mupporulum peyt'amaitta cemporulai emmaraikkum ce.tporulait tankurukurc ceymoliya t'enpar cilariyan ivvulakil

taymoliya t'enpen takaintu

Five, four, three, and the one, beyond all knowledge, that flows through them all-

it belongs in a distant tongue

SANSKRIT AND TELUGU IN MEDIEVAL ANDHRA

in this temple of Kurukfir, or so they say,

but as for me, it's all there in my mother tongue.

[Five elements, four goals of human life, the three great gods---iva, Visnu, Brahmi-all these are externalizations of true being (porull identified as the god at the temple of TirukkurukUir. When the poetess Auvaiy&r arrived there, she was drawn into a discussion as to the relative merits of Sanskrit and Tamil in the liturgy. This verse is her response.]

4. By Brahmins, I intend the varna category, and not the many endoganous groups generally known by the cover word brahmin. Just as only a few of the many endogamous groups of

peasants acquired the varna status of the Ksatriya, only a small number of the endogamous groups of brahmins acquired the varna status of the Brahmin in premodem India.

5. See Rao and Heifetz 1987:131-36 for another discussion of the relationship between the king and his court poet in medieval Andhra.

6. For the ideological nature of Sanskrit purinas see Rao 1993:85-100. 7. dharanipud' endunt dagadu tn7janan llratak' okkanin dagun

doran onariiicipampan ari durbalucFjedad' atad' artha-bhll-

kari-turagarddhi lJka k5ragad' a(u sJya dvijiynyud' alkakun nerav' agun' atadun valayu nin4ina durga-bahYrvi yr dagun.

Amuktama7lyada 4.155. 8. urutara-gadya-padygktula kante

sarasamaiparagina jcnudenuadgu carcimpagJ sarva-sc7mc7nyam' agu(a gairceda dvipadalu g5rki daivtYra....

alpiYksaramulan analpfartharacana kalpi6ic'uaya kfde kavi vivJkambu Palkuriki S6manitha, BasavapuranVa 1.165-74.

9. "While marga poetry flourished in the world from times long ago, the Calukyaking and many others made degi poetry in Telugu stand firm in the Andhra area" (Nannecoda, Kum7rasambhavamu 1.23).

10. yambu mudilafija di44ikanta iyyanJrani randa nJlg'Jkajffti.

From a verse in Venugop7la ?atakamu attributed to Sara'ngapini (early eighteenth century), but probably written by a later poet at the Karvetinagaram court, P6lipeddi Vefikatar&yakavi.

11. Pidaparti S6tmanitha, a devoted follower of P&lkuriki S6manitha, records this legend in his

retelling of the Basavapurana in campll, a genre from the marga tradition current from the time of Nannayya's MahaibhJrata, but opposed by Pilkuriki SOrnan&tha. For further discussion of marga and degi, see Rao and Roghair 1990:3-3 1.

12. See Siddhedvaracaritramu of Kase Sarvappa (early seventeenth century). 13. panivadi n7nikJla-phala-pakamunanjaviyaina bhattaha-

rsuni kavitanugumbhamulu samani-pUtulu kondar'ayyal'au- n'ani koniyada nJrar' adi yattida lJ-javarc7lu cekku gY- lina vasa valcu balakudu dendamunan galaganga nercuneT

Srin&tha, Srngairanaisadhamu 1.17. 14. kond4raku denugu gunamagu

gondarikini samskrtambu gunamagu rendun

gondariki gunamul'agu nJ nandari meppintu grtulan ayyai'yedalan

Sr!mahatbhagavatamu, 1.16. 15. tenuguna tJtagJ kathalu telpina kavyamu pondulddu rnei-

tana pasaca7ladandru vidadambuga samskrtadabdam' iida jep- pinan avi darbhamundl'anucu bettaru vinula gavunan rucul

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danara denungu dlsiyunu dadbhavamun galayaiga jeppedan. Sihasanadvatrim'ika, 1.32.

16. Kridabhiramamu, 37. My reading differs from the conventional reading by Telugu scholars, who fail to see the parodic tone of the verse.

17. Ketana, Andhra-bhlSa-bhu$anamu 14, cited in Arudra 1990, 2:158. 18. The regions where the eight languages are spoken are: Sanskrit in heaven, Prakrit in the

Maharashtra region, Sauraseni in the Surasena region, Magadhi in Magadha, Paisaci [the demons' language] in the Pndya, Kekaya, Salva, Bahlika, Anupa, Gandhara, Nepala, Kuntala, Sudesna, Bhoja and Kannoja areas, PaiSacika-Culika and Apabhramsa in the Abhlra region, and Telugu in the Andhra area (Appakaviyamu, 1.81).

19. This is how, for instance, Srinatha describes the polyglot capabilities of his patron Areti Annaya, a minister of king Allidareddi: arabi bhS7a turufka bhdSa gaja karnat'ndhra gandhara ghu- rjara bhafal malaySla bhcaa Sakabhtfa sindhu sauvira bar- barabhafal karahatabhfaa mariyun bhilaviSeSambul acceruvai vaccun areti yannaniki gosthisampray5gambulan.

BhimeSvarapuranamu 1.73. "Arabic, Turkish, the languages of Gaja, Kamita, Andhra, and Gandhara, Gujarati,

Malayalam, the gaka language, the barbarian languages of Sindhu and Sauvira, Konkani, and many others-Areti Anna can use them all in royal assemblies."

Another verse also speaks of his beautiful calligraphy in Persian (parasi-bhafq) on paper (kakitam).

20. murikinativaru morakulu penaparu l'aravavcru dvijulak' asa pedda anucu deSabhS^alanu kulambunu dittun' atadu danduvaccu Sata phanamulu.

Ketana, VijnfanevarTyamu 2.56 (thirteenth century), as quoted by Arudra 1990, 2:163. 21. Appakaviyamu pTthika, 46-47. 22. All four benefits: dharma (religious merit), artha (wealth), kama (desire), and mokSa (release). 23. Here Appakavi seems to be referring to the Tamil Vaisnava texts (the Divyaprabandham). 24. kimcit-tikta-ka$aya-ia.daba-rasa-kSppatir?kativak-

samcara-pracayavakdSamulalh kavy-udgha gandJSmamul caiical-lllan' udatta-vag-garimato sadhinci vWdhincuwn

paicariici pravahlika-krta-krtin pat.na-paka-prabhu

This verse was composed by Jalasutram Rukmininatha Sastri ("Jaruk' Sastri) in ironic praise of the great Visvanatha Satyanarayana, whom he regarded as his guru. The texture of rock (pasana-paka) is a parodic addition to the well-known three textures (paka, literally "cooking to a certain consistency"): drak'a-paka, "the grape," as in a poem savored without effort; kadali-paka, "the banana," which requires peeling before tasting; and narikela-paka, "the coconut," where the thick fibrous exteriorhas to be removed and then the hard nut broken open.